


Please Don't Wake Me

by golden_gardenias



Series: Gallavich Week 2014 [6]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Gallavich Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2004249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_gardenias/pseuds/golden_gardenias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ian's face.  It was always Ian's face."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Wake Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gallavich Week 2014 Day 7: Was I just invited to a sleepover? Originally published on Tumblr 6/23/14.

Mickey had been having trouble sleeping for a while now.  He could never seem to get comfortable enough to fully go under; Svetlana’s presence made his skin crawl, and he would find himself laying awake and trying not to vomit at her scent on his sheets.  More often than not, he would toss and turn for a few hours before giving up and smoking through a pack of cigarettes to pass the time.

Whenever he did manage to find sleep, he would have nightmares.

They weren’t of things that would typically scare someone, no monsters clawing at him or demons dragging him to hell.

Ian’s face.  It was always Ian’s face.

Sometimes it was the way he’d smiled through the glass when he came to visit Mickey in juvie.  His bright laughter could be heard in the background, and Mickey always woke up filled with a deep sense of regret.  He would lock himself in the bathroom until everyone else woke, staring at the picture of Ian he had hidden away.

Sometimes he would be transported back to the worst day of his life, forced to watch his father beat Ian without being able to help.  Mickey would scream himself hoarse, pleading and threatening and bargaining with his father to let Ian go.  Svetlana would wake him from those with a worried look on her face, which didn’t help at all.  Mandy would always ask him about it at breakfast, saying she could hear him screaming.  He wanted to ask her what he said, but he already knew.

_Just stop hurting him, **please**._

Sometimes he would be on the couch with Svetlana on top of him, watching Ian’s eyes fill with tears.  In his dream he always threw her off of him and stood up to his father, unloading years of resentment on him.  When he finished his tirade, his father would smirk cruelly and shoot Ian in the face.  The ring of the gunshot always woke him, and his hands would tremble.

He would walk around with that picture in his back pocket for the entire day after he woke up from those.

There were two he hated the most, two that made him vomit and cry and left him feeling dead inside.  One was a memory of when he’d beaten Ian; as much as he would be screaming at himself to stop, his fists kept flying.  Ian’s words would be drowned out by his father’s taunting, and Mickey wouldn’t stop until there was blood staining the grass and inking his hands.

The other was Ian’s cold eyes when he’d left him, the cutting stare that reduced him to dust whenever it settled on him.  When he finished vomiting after that one, he would stare at that picture, the only picture of Ian he had, and think of all the things he should have said, everything that would’ve kept him here.

He would say all of it and more if it brought Ian back.

Now, miracle of miracles, he found him.  Sleeping hadn’t gotten any easier, though.  Now he was plagued by Ian’s vacant look at the club, as if he hadn’t recognized him, as if he didn’t feel anything for him.

But time had passed since then, and the fact that he knows where Ian is, doesn’t have to worry about if he’s safe or warm or had enough to eat— _Jesus Christ get a grip you’re not his fucking mother_ —made it easier to fall asleep, but he still couldn’t stay asleep.

* * *

This party was a fucking joke.

He couldn’t help feeling awkward and out of place with all of Ian’s well-to-do friends, and their politeness and cordiality was starting to wear on him.  He just wanted to ignore them all and go home, but Ian wouldn’t let him.

Everyone started settling in for the night around 3, and Mickey was a bit peeved that Ian hadn’t told him he planned on staying the night— _"What is this, a fucking sleepover?”_ —but he stayed anyway.  No way he was leaving Ian by himself with these people.  Ian seemed to like them, but Mickey didn’t know them.  They could rob him while he slept, or—

He wasn’t leaving Ian alone here.

Ian fell asleep pretty quickly, leaving Mickey to restlessly watch everyone else.  He could hear sex in the bedroom and murmured conversations spread out through the rest of the loft, but he made no effort to join any of them.  He stayed perched by Ian’s side, trying not to watch him sleep— _because shit, how faggy can you get_ —and failing miserably.

He didn’t want to sleep here.  He couldn’t even sleep at his own house, how could he possibly spend the night on some stranger’s pull-out bed?  Which just happened to be the most comfortable bed he’d ever been on.

Ian started to twitch in his sleep, mumbling incoherently under his breath.  Mickey curled a hand around his bicep automatically, and Ian immediately calmed down.  It seemed like he smiled, too.

Mickey tried not to dwell on the fact that Ian had recognized his touch while he was unconscious and that it had been enough to calm him.  He tried to keep himself from laying down next to him.  He tried not to focus on the fact that touching Ian was calming for him, too.  He tried to keep his eyes open as he watched the even rise and fall of Ian’s chest with each breath.

He failed, and fell into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in months.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the chorus of a Beatles song, "I'm Only Sleeping," if anyone was wondering.
> 
> "Please don't wake me,  
> No, don't shake me.  
> Leave me where I am,  
> I'm only sleeping."


End file.
